Circles in the Water
by lrigD
Summary: For those very first events in womanhood, the woman beneath the ground in front of her had guided her.


**_Alright, so... hi!  
>I'm not sure if this has been done before, but I thought of it and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. So here it is!<em>**

**_I have nothing else to say, except I don't own anything and I hope you'll enjoy it!  
><em>**

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><p>She stood silently in front of the small, simple headstone. Booth was behind her, waiting in the car. He'd insisted on bringing her, and she had in turn insisted that he stayed behind. This was a moment for her, not for him. As much as she wanted him to be a part of her life, this was simply something he could not be part of. Thankfully, he had understood.<p>

She thought back, briefly, to the other time she had stood here. She felt less ridiculous now, but she wasn't quite comfortable either. Still, the events of the past few months had changed her. She didn't believe, but she was more open.

For those very first events in womanhood, the woman beneath the ground in front of her had guided her. She had told a young girl, wary of the changes that were taking place, what she needed to know. She had comforted her with soothing tea when her stomach had hurt terribly, and she'd listened patiently to Temperance's stories of the boys she had a crush on. Those moments felt sacred now, moments in time that, though they'd been seemingly unimportant at the time, were now among the most treasured times of her memories. Moments before her world had changed irrevocably. These moments reminded her that, once, she'd been a normal girl, before foster homes and abuse and silence.

She gazed once more at the headstone of her mother's grave. Simple words were engraved upon it, but, like the woman whose name was written upon it, the headstone was no indication of the whole story. Its simpleness betrayed no importance; yet, this woman had been important once. She'd been loved. And, likewise, anybody who would have seen Christine Brennan would not have suspected the story the woman carried with her.

Her hand moved to her stomach as she remembered a conversation, one that had taken place only days before her parents had left. She realized now that it had been part of a goodbye, but at the time, she had been unsuspectful.

_They were watching The Princess Bride, a movie that Temperance had loved since it came out. The classic fairytale theme of love, obstructed by evil, entranced her, and more than once she found herself wishing she had a Westley in her life. Instead, the boys in her life never paid any attention to her. She was too studious for them, even though, contrary to their beliefs, she didn't spend much time on her homework; she just had the luck of being smart._

_This time, her wish for a Westley was stronger than ever. At the Christmas party a few days before at school, she had danced with Rick Cullough. She had never really interacted with him, but as he started moving with her on the dance floor, drawing her away from other girls, she'd felt feminine, powerful even. She had tried to impress him by dancing the way she'd seen the other girls do; jiggling her hips, looking up at him through her eyelashes. He'd smiled and pulled her closer, and she'd closed her eyes in anticipation of a kiss when somebody had bumped into her, drenching her with a cold drink. The boy had apologized, but his voice had been insincere, and she saw him flash a smile to Rick. As she moved to the restroom, she'd heard him tell Rick that he'd saved him, 'you can get much better than that scary chick.' She froze just in time to hear Rick say that 'he was just toying with her.' She'd gone home in tears that night, refusing to tell her parents what had happened, but, she suspected, her mother knew anyway and had therefore proposed to watch the movie that never failed to cheer her up._

_When Buttercup and Westley finally got together at the end of the film, Christine casually bumped her shoulder against her daughter's. 'That's real love, right?' she asked, and when Temperance nodded a little sadly, her mother gave her a one-armed hug. 'I promise, sweetheart, that one day that love will be yours.' The tears that formed in Temperance eyes prompted her into a full hug, and Temperance, crying, told her mother the story of the Christmas party._

_Christine's eyes were filled with anger on her daughter's behalf. 'He's not worth it, sweetheart,' she told her firmly. 'He is mean and all he cares about is impressing his friends, because on the inside, he's terrified of losing them and becoming unpopular.'The words 'like you' resonated unacknowledged in the room. 'Don't let boys like him bring you down, Tempe,' her mother told her. 'One day, you'll meet somebody who will love you, body and soul, and he'll be worth it.'_

'I found him', Brennan whispered to her mother. 'I found him, and you'd like him...Mom,' she said the word a little awkwardly. 'He's kind and gentle and he'd never intentionally hurt me. He loves me, has loved me for a long time, and I...' she took a deep breath, 'I love him, too.'

She had told him that, more than once, but it still felt a little odd saying it.

'We love each other,' she whispered. Her hand still rested on her swollen stomach. 'And we love this little one, too.' She smiled. 'I'll be a mother soon,' she said, still with a trace of wonder in her voice. 'We're going to be a family.' She looked back, briefly, at Booth, who was still waiting patiently in the car.

'I thought you should know,' she said a little more brusquely, 'even though you won't hear. Booth insisted that I come here and tell you.'

'I hope I'll find the happiness you had with us,' she whispered. After a beat of silence, she continued. 'And I hope our child will never experience the pain I felt when you left.'

Then, she finally turned back. She looked at the gravestone once more, thinking about destiny and the circle of life, before heading back to the car.

Ready to enter her own destiny.

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><p><strong><em>Please review! And about The Princess Bride, I was looking for a nice romantic pre-1990 movie (I'm terrible at guessing ages so I played it safe and assumed that a pre-1990 movie was something Brennan could definitely have seen as a teenager), and the only one I could find that I myself had watched was The Princess Bride, so that's why I chose it.<em>**


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